Explainer: Chicken Salt, Australia’s Fave Home-Grown Seasoning

Hot chips are nothing without chicken salt. You’d be hard-pressed to find an Australian who doesn’t agree. From suburban takeaway joints and fast-food outlets to pubs and truck stops around the country, this mysterious flavoured salt is sprinkled on hot chooks, potato cakes, dim sims and chips with the wildest abandon.

So what actually is this fluorescent yellow magic dust, and is it made from poultry carcasses? Well, no. It’s seasoning made for chicken, not from chicken. The actual chicken salt origin story was almost lost to time until some years ago when cook, TV host and author Adam Liaw uncovered it while chasing down a childhood memory. Rumour was his schoolmate’s dad invented the stuff. Turns out he was right.

Peter Brinkworth (said mate’s dad) is a salt-of-the-earth guy who ran a chicken shop in 1970s Gawler, South Australia. He originally developed the seasoning to flavour the cooked chickens he sold, until he realised it’d be good on everything else too.

Brinkworth’s original chicken salt recipe contained onion powder, garlic powder, celery salt, paprika, chicken bouillon, monosodium glutamate and curry powder, according to Liaw’s follow-up piece in The Guardian. The chook shop owner would mix it up in 20-litre plastic bins and “as you did your chickens you’d just sprinkle it on”. (That’s what he says in Salt of the Earth, the 2022 documentary that explains the delicious invention.)

Unsurprisingly, locals loved it. Brinkworth had lines of people out the shop to the kerb, and they lined up well into the night. Then in 1977, the Mitani family bought the business – and the chicken salt recipe that came with it.

That name sound familiar? Mitani is the brand name of the omnipresent chicken salt you’ll find in supermarkets nationwide. Today’s Mitani recipe, like most modern recipes, does not contain any chicken.

Chicken salts by Mitani and other supermarket brands are widely available to sprinkle on your home-cooked crinkle-cuts, but bougie versions have also proliferated in recent years.

American-barbeque joint Fancy Hank’s sells its own blend alongside a chicken salt-flavoured mayonnaise; spice pros Gewurzhaus mix in coconut sugar and ground kelp; and Japanese restaurant Chotto Motto’s version is cut with Japanese curry powder.

While Brinkworth’s original chicken salt recipe calls for curry powder (Keen’s brand preferred), the Japanese curry powder in Chotto Motto’s rendition is a milder and more rounded blend where turmeric, cumin and coriander really stand out. The result is a chicken salt with warmth, umami and an almost buttery aroma.

Chotto Motto co-owner Dylan Jones has always been a chicken salt fan. “It’s one of those nostalgic, unmistakably Aussie flavours that instantly takes me back to charcoal chicken shops growing up.” You’ll find him sprinkling his version on popcorn, fried chicken, roast potatoes and even eggs in the morning. It’s also on the menu at Chotto Motto dusting its hot chips, with a side of miso mayo for dunking.

Harry Stephens, the founder of small-batch crisps brand Chappy’s, describes chicken salt as an “Australian delicacy”. He turned it into a flavour for his kettle-cooked potato chips in 2022. (Despite the word “chicken” appearing on the packaging, they’re totally vegan.)

The flavouring has even made its way into the drinks aisle. In 2022, Big Shed Brewing released a limited-edition chicken salt gose in collaboration with Mitani. The verdict? Polarising. “Kudos to the mad scientists at Big Shed but this was fucked,” writes one intrepid taste tester on beer review site Untappd.

Beer collabs aside, chicken salt is an Australian national treasure. But its fandom remains local. Most Americans don’t even know what it is and, shockingly, if you buy chips (sorry, fries) from KFC stateside they’ll be chicken salt-free.

Though if you find yourself in New York or London with a sudden craving for chicken-salt, there are options. Dudleys, an Australian all-day diner in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, douses fries and calamari in chicken salt. Up until a few years ago, Dudleys also sold it by the jar. In London, you can get your fix via The Chicken Salt Co, a business launched by two Sydneysiders homesick for that familiar umami kick. If you’re an Aussie expat living in the United Kingdom or Ireland, desperate for a taste of home, you can buy the stuff in bulk: two kilograms for 62 quid.

Want to try your hand at making DIY chicken salt? Here are six new takes on the classic seasoning from some of our favourite chefs.

This story is part of Broadsheet’s special Nostalgia Issue, presented by Up, documenting food, fashion, culture, travel and tech that makes the past new again.